


This Iron Cage of Sword-blades Twined

by openmouthwideeye



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openmouthwideeye/pseuds/openmouthwideeye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That bloody throne had been a thorn in his side since he joined the Kingsguard at five and ten. It had become no less daunting with the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Iron Cage of Sword-blades Twined

**Author's Note:**

> This is the crackiest crack fic ever to crack. Seriously. My brain, you guys. My brain.

Jaime slipped into the enclosed practice yard, working the familiar kink from the muscle running down the back of his thigh and up his arse. Blades were meant for freedom and movement, not for bloody sitting on.

“Off with you,” he grumbled at the youth in red and gold livery, standing formally beside the armory as if he could deny Jaime entrance. He’d been instructed to, no doubt.

The gods had spent years conspiring against Jaime Lannnister, punishing him slowly for his crimes. Slayer and maker of kings and their queens. He had paid through cruelest irony: twisted and manipulated and forced back into the Red Keep, where even the servants acted on the will of others.

The young man tensed, shifted on his feet, and it took another hard glance from Jaime to send him scurrying through the archway that lead back to the throne room.

His stump ached and pulsed; his phantom fingers flared to life for the first time in months. Jaime ignored the sensation, rolled it away with a turn of his shoulders, and entered the cool shadows of the sagging armory.

He took his time in choosing a blade. There were endless choices, all expertly crafted and wrought with intricate designs, dotted with unnecessary riches. He ran the rough pad of his left hand along their pommels, hefted a few to test their weight, and settled on a gold-plated sword that reminded him of days forever lost.

He studied the hilt, the glint of steel peeking through from the sweet caresses of centuries of hands. He thought about those fingers, where they’d come from. Winterfell and Sunspear and the Iron Islands. Old Valyria. Casterly Rock.

The Seven Kingdoms were no more. The land had been ripped apart by Dornish blades, dashed upon Iron prows, and smothered by the quiet, cold snows of the North. The fury of dragons reborn clashed with icy-breathed, ancient creatures, and the Wall exploded in a shower of fire and ice. The rubble of the world was left to smoke and burn, choking the remnants and enveloping the Iron Throne in a fog of pitch and cinder.

Littlefinger had meant to be King of the Ashes. Jaime never had the stomach for ashes.

He stepped back into the sunlight that crept over the cracked and crumbling walls, stretching long shadows across the secret yard.

_And here you are_ , he mocked in his head, surveying the dust and ash that the wind had not yet captured and blown free.

He sensed a shadow, knew even as he turned who he would find. He greeted her with a faint smile, worn and wry and true.

“My Queen,” he inclined his head, waiting.

Brienne shifted uncomfortably as he knew she would. Then she straightened, defying his ability to discomfit her.

She was dressed well, in a tunic of ivory silk and blue brocade breeches. The thin gold-and-ruby crown was all but lost in the straw of her hair. Oathkeeper was sheathed on her left hip, her hand unconsciously pressed to its hilt.

“Jaime,” she reproved, stepping free of the archway. “You’ve slipped your guard.”

“They know where to find me,” he grumbled, tracing the worn runes etched into the hilt of his blade. “Besides,” he smiled up at her, feeling freer than he had all day. “You’re better protection than that gaggle of ill-trained louts.

It was Brienne’s turn to look frustrated, though she tried better to hide it.

“It is the right of the Kingsguard to protect their King and Queen.”

“And the right of the King and Queen to slip their guard.”

Brienne tightened her mouth, and did not argue. Jaime suspected it was because his wife found it difficult paying lip service to the ancient order of the Kingsguard when she might knock each and every one of them flat into the dust, and with far less effort than she needed to face the highborn ladies who still played at court.

“We are needed in the small council chambers,” she switched tact, moving into the sunlight.

Jaime met her in the middle of the yard.

“You find small council meetings as dreadfully onerous as I do,” he eased her close with his stump, nudging his nose below her ear and pressing a feather-light kiss to the hanging scar concealed beneath her collar.

“We have a duty,” she murmured, her fingers twining in his hair, grasping tight as he nipped at her neck.

Jaime grunted at the pressure, pulled her flush against him and worked his lips up and over her jaw.

“Duty,” he grumbled against her mouth. “Next you’ll be bringing up vows.”

He pulled away at the echo of footsteps, grinding the tip of his blade into the hard-packed dirt.

Brienne was flushed, eyes bright and annoyed, and Jaime wondered if the interloper would think they had succeeded today.

“Your Grace.” The liveried boy had returned with a wizened old maester, who studied Jaime and Brienne with a pressed mouth, and said nothing. “The Council awaits your leisure.”

“Did you hear that?” he murmured to Brienne, unable to muster the effort to sound truly sardonic. “ _My_ leisure.”

Brienne admonished him with her expression, but the effect was rather spoiled by the concurrence in her eyes.

Jaime sighed, depositing the sword into the arms of the youth, who fumbled at the unexpected burden before remembering himself, bowing and leading the royal pair through the red stone archway.

Another day they had not crossed blades. He was not terribly surprised.

“They’ll expect you in skirts,” Jaime told his wife as they left the crisp, clean sunlight of the yard and entered the well-worn paths of the Red Keep.

Brienne’s buckteeth darted out to press and release her lower lip. She thinned her mouth, defiant.

“They can accept their Queen as she comes to them.”

She did not mean it half so wholeheartedly as she appeared, but she was learning.

“Good wench,” he murmured.

This time, the flash of defiance in her eyes rang true.

Jaime laughed, catching up her hand and pressing a kiss to the mass of freckles and scars.

“Do you remember when I was the vile Kingslayer, and you were a pig-headed swordswench?” he teased.

Brienne’s wide hand pressed against his own, and her eyes were alight if her lips were not.

“I remember,” she murmured, twining their fingers.

“The King and Queen,” the bloody unappeasable youth announced to the small council, forcing Jaime and Brienne back to the task at hand.

“Queen Brienne the Brave and King Goldenhand the Just,” Jaime snorted. The ache in his arse started up again. Walking towards the council chambers made it worse, knotting it to a fist below his hip. “We should have escaped while we had the chance.”

Brienne made no effort to agree. Jaime held her with their clasped hands and pressed her with his eyes until she sighed, faint and unmistakable. She carefully checked the corridor for listeners, then pitched her voice low. The walls had ears.

“We could have been hedge knights,” she acknowledged, rough and heady.

The longing in her clear blue eyes stirred her husband, body and spirit. His wife swallowed up her desire in the face of her duty, and Jaime did the same.

“Tomorrow,” he promised by rote, dropping her hand and putting on the affectations of kingship. “We shall cross blades tomorrow.”

_The blasted kingdom needs ruling today._

**Author's Note:**

> I just have no idea. Really. 
> 
> I was just thinking about how unambitious Jaime is, and how he could have had the throne several times over if he cared to, but politics bore him to tears. And then I thought about Brienne and how she would rule fairly and honorably, and be totally baffled and hate it besides. And all these people who are grasping for the throne would run the kingdom into the ground, and Westeros will never really thrive until the Game of Thrones implodes itself. And I don't really think Jaime and Brienne would make the best rulers, but this happened anyway.
> 
> I don't know. I just don't know.
> 
> Um, feedback, I guess?


End file.
